Moreover, there are perfectly good utilitarian reasons to avoid pushing the fat man off the bridge. If people are widely known be utilitarians and it is widely known that utilitarians would push the fat man, that knowledge has its own consequences: fat people will not use footbridges anymore. This sounds a bit stupid and inconsequential when we talk about trolleys and footbridges but become more serious in another type of settings.

Imagine a healthy patient going to the doctor for a check-up. The doctor has list of patients waiting for an organ transplant that would save their lives. The healthy patient can provide organs for 5 of them. Should the doctor kill the healthy patient to save 5 people (its the same equation as the trolley.)

The answer is no because if it becomes known (or if it can be predicted) that doctors sacrifice their healthy patients for organ transplants, people will stop consulting doctors. This will have a negative impact on public health and, ultimately, will end up with more life losts.

Correct utilitarianism has to be reflexively consistent and take into account second order and n-th order effects. The problem of trolleyology is that it presents problems that are one-off occurences and so does not allow for taking into account wider consequences of the answer given or of the wide adoption of a given answer.

A rather weak article, I would say. Trolleyology has many issues in its design and most people are not prepared to correctly face those kind of problems anyway. What the study shows is that utilitarianism/consequentialism does not come naturaly to humans and that, by and large, the only part of the population that does not have an "eek" reaction to some of its conclusions are psychopaths and socialy enstranged people... The very fact that most people are poor at moral decision making and that humans moral intuitions are naturaly based on a deontological model should make people approach the study mentionned in the article with caution.

That does not tell you much about the virtues or failings of utilitarianism per se.

This article is the kind of light article you would expect in magazines generaly available in your dentist's waiting room. I tend to expect more thoughtfulness from The Economist though I am always happy to see exposure and discussion of the problems of moral thinking.

Whta the trolleyology argument tries to show is that we are in some way inconsistent. During the lecture, the inconsistency is not explored - just observed.
The problem of the utilitarian approach to solving a problem is in responsibility. If we feel responsible for what will happen, we will all be utilitarians. If we are the trolley *driver* and we can choose track 1 with 5 workers vs track 2 with 1 worker, we will choose track two. Those who think they wouldn't are in denial or do not think of themselves as the trolley driver.
If we do not consider ourselves responsible (we are definde to be a *bystander*), we will choose not to get involved. The utilitarian will also choose not to get involved, because it will make him/her a much happier being to turn his back and not see the carnage ensue. We are all utilitarians, the difference is in our sense of responsibility. Some are more responsible than others.

To understand Bentham's writings better, we need to remind ourselves of the leading schools of moral philosophy in Europe of his time. Bentham was influenced by them but to his credit he influenced several European writers in turn.

I am no more than a general reader around their themes. My offerings here are very limited in many ways.

To simplify, French, German and British moral philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries wrote about 'human nature', what it deserves, when and how far humans should be controlled, their freedoms interfered with by a State and, above all, for what reasons?

1) Human nature 'is essentially bad and needs to be controlled firmly' - T. Hobbes and a host of German and French writers.

The significance of this view lies in the damage a few humans with warped inclinations can cause others.

It only takes a pair of Bonny and Clyde to rob half-a-dozen banks and kill half-a-dozen police officers. That is one pair of desperados out of a large community of several thousands of people.

Imagine three or four pairs them. So, even if 99% of people are good natured, the 1% who are of a different disposition have to be controlled by the state.

Battling terrorism that utilises the freedoms of liberal, democratic societies, Hobbes is relevant.

2) Human nature 'is special, unique in Creation and deserves as much freedom as individuals desire'. State and government are the threats to human freedoms - Kant, T.Mann, Rousseau, Voltaire and others.

It seems to me that Bentham and Utilitarians took a third position.

'Yes, human nature may be this or that, but we think social utility needs to be looked at in any case for any meaningful exercise of human freedoms."

"Should a potential terrorist and his associates be arrested and tortured to get at information that may save the lives of hundreds of other lives?"

Utilitarians may answer, "On the whole, yes, BUT work hard on your investigations, come to the 'third degree' methods only as a last resort.

Utilitarians may recognise that EXTREME BEHAVIOUR by some humans WILL ELICIT EXTREME RESPONSES from the State and government.

There is much 'social utility' in saving the lives of a larger number of people.

Despite this false example of 'trollyology', the proposition remains true.

If it is denied, then expect vigilante groups to deal with the extremist humans by-passing the State and Government - a very bad outcome from any point of view.

Hobbes ['Leviathan'] took the view that human nature is not 'that good'. He denied that any ideal 'state of nature' existed where each individual exercised his or her freedoms to the full. He said that far from 'full and free exercise of rights', life in a 'state of nature' would be 'short, poor and brutish'.

Several early Indian writers, such as Chanakya (Kautilya - 200 B.C) espoused similar views that in a human society left without a controlling authority, the logic of the 'big fish eating the small ones' (Matsya Nyaya) will prevail.

If you accept that morality is an evolved behavior this all becomes much less confusing. Nobody would sacrifice their own child (however fat) to save strangers. Sacrificing a stranger to save your own kids is something we find easier to contemplate. It might be necessary to sacrifice yourself too, wether you needed to or not, to avoid your surviving children suffering from the stigma of being descended from a bastard like you. All of this improves the chances of the successful propagation of the genes that predispose you to behave like that.

There is no obvious Darwinian advantage in choosing between the deaths of different complete strangers. The number of specimens involved does not change this. This is why all but the psychopath would in fact do nothing.

Reading Bentham and J.S. Mill will show that Utilitarianism is not 'a-moral' or against considering ethics. 'Brian Lynchehaun' above has already made this point.

Ethics is one of 'several goods' that an utilitarian would have to consider in his/her deliberations. She will recognise that Ethics can lead to the 'greatest happiness of the greatest numbers of people'. But she may say that Ethics is not the sole factor, even if it is a dominant one.

This has been demonstrated in real life in such laws as those that imposed 'prohibition' in the USA or banned abortion for whatever reason. In both cases, a solely moral / religious stance would point to a total ban. But with such simplistic solutions, other 'social goods' suffer and the outcome is not satisfactory for society.

So, the rub is morals are only one of 'several goods' in Utilitarian outlook. To my mind that is right, although in theory it is hard to argue that into a school of thought.

This research and findings have spotted only a theoretical weakness in Utilitarianism but they are misleading us in saying that it is fatal to the entire philosophy. It is not. It is merely reflective of real life dilemmas.

It is not true to say that 'Goodness has nothing to do' with Utilitarianism.

If this is the test that shows Utilitarianism behavior in people, then it is simply wrong. This test actually asks if one would WITNESS 5 people getting killed or KILL one person (while saving 5 people). Of course 90% percent will choose to be a WITNESS, not a KILLER. The test should be changed to a train heading on to 2 possible tracks and one has the switch; would the person switch the train to the "one victim" track or would it leave it to the "5 people" track. That is the question. I bet the researcher will get other percentages and "better" utilitarians.

I'm impressed. It took the article until the second paragraph to demonstrate that the author doesn't understand Utilitarianism: "A utilitarian, for example, might approve of the occasional torture of suspected terrorists—for the greater happiness of everyone else, you understand."

Mill makes a very great deal out of personal autonomy, and that autonomy is inviolable. /fail

Anyone who believes that Utilitarianism allows for the sacrifice of someone else doesn't understand Utilitarianism. The author should take some time to read On Liberty before writing articles on this topic.

I think that labeling these 'effective' people as utilitarians is misleading. The traits identified are consistent with a personality disorder where the person has a lack of empathy. eg. cannot recognize that the fat person may not be willing to sacrifice his life for the other 5, despite the obvious advantages.
So these people with personality disorders come to powerful positions in our society. They are prepared to make decisions that most balanced people would find unconscionable.
The Bill Clintons and W. Bushes of the world, despite their protestations that 'I feel your pain', cause immense pain.

For an insightful account of the ideas championed by Jeremy Bentham and his peers, see Michel Foucault's "discipline & punish". It's not hard to see utilitarianism as being quite sinister, if you look at it hard enough.

I will also suggest that pushing the fat guy in front of a train is not necessarily a utilitarian act, perhaps society would be happier if, when accidents occur, that indicate lives are not sacrificed by proactive human action against their will to prevent them from occuring, if so, pushing the fat guy is an act counter to utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism is at odds with the religious codes promoted by the world's major religions. Anyone who believes the 10 commandments was would not push the large stranger.perhaps then, these characteristics are associated with being non-religious rather than utilitarian.

To lead requires the ability to take difficult tough decisions that may seem heartless to an ordinary mortal. Most achievements in human history have been achieved at some cost and if there were to be aversion to paying this cost the status quo would prevail. Thus the results obtained make sense.
Humans have compassion for fellow beings, a trait that is inborn in humans but that inborn instinct is reinforced by the love an infant receives from the mother and other members of the family and society at large for that matter. Children that are denied that love and are abused and unloved get their inborn compassion instinct turned off and become heartless and in some ways dysfunctional . The love that a mother gives her infant nourishes a person a whole lifetime and keeps the individual anchored to society and family .